


Go Quietly Quiet

by LibraryMage



Category: Leverage
Genre: Autistic Character, Episode: s01e10 The 12-Step Job, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Psychiatric Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 08:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13947501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: Parker deals with the fallout from infiltrating Second Act.





	Go Quietly Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> post-episode tag for The 12 Step Job.
> 
> warning for: references to child abuse; references to psychiatric abuse and abuse by therapists; forced medication/treatment; self-injury (head-hitting, wall-punching, and scratching); references to past restraint and seclusion

They were all gathered in the office for what Parker guessed could be called post-game analysis, but she wasn’t listening to a single word.  Nate and Sophie and Hardison’s voices droned around her in a haze, with occasional interjections from Eliot.  Parker just stared down at the table they all sat around, tracing her finger along the edge.  She’d barely said a word since she’d gotten into the car when she left Second Act.

_I like this Parker._   The words were sticking inside her head, refusing to move no matter how hard she tried to pry them away.

“Can I go home?”  The question jumped from her mouth before she even realized she was going to ask it.  The briefing room went quiet, the weird kind of quiet that made Parker squirm as everything under her skin itched.  Nate was looking at her with one of those weird expressions that Parker couldn’t pinpoint.

“You feeling okay?” he asked.

“Can I go home?” Parker repeated.

Nate just stared and for a second, Parker was sure he’d say no.  Then, slowly, he nodded.

“Go ahead,” he said.  “The rest of you --”

Parker was already bolting out the door before he reached the end of the sentence.

* * *

 

When Parker reached the warehouse, she pulled the door shut, an invisible weight lifting from her chest as she heard the satisfying _click_ of the lock.  It got easier to breathe with each deadbolt she slid into place.

She stripped off the light gray shirt and sweatpants, throwing them to the floor -- she’d throw them in the garbage, where they belonged, later -- and pulled on her own clothes.  Soft, familiar, comfortable, didn’t make her skin crawl so much she wanted to claw it off.

She wanted to take a shower, to wash the feeling of that place off her skin and out of her brain, but she didn’t have the space in her head to do it.  Tomorrow, she decided.

She paced around the big, almost-empty room, anger and frustration and anxiety and a need to _run_ building up with every step like a chain reaction.  She hung her head and tangled her fingers in her hair, fighting off the urge to smack her head against the wall.  But she had to hit something, so she settled for punching the wall instead, refusing to acknowledge the red-hot pain that spiked up her arm.

She let out a scream of…she didn’t know what and she didn’t care.

She sank to the floor, her back to the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest, lightly hitting her forehead against them.  She wanted to scream again and again and keep screaming until her chest burst open, but she kept quiet.  Someone might hear, might call the cops.  So, she stayed quiet.  She was good at being quiet.

If she thought about it too much -- which she did; she couldn't help it -- she could still feel that weird, almost-sticky feeling after the last dose they’d made her take, from hiding the pill between her gums and her cheek.  Since the first time, when she’d pretended to chew the pills up, they didn’t bother to check to make sure she swallowed them for real.

Parker stood up abruptly and moved to her bed, sitting down on the edge of it and hugging Bunny against her chest.  She rocked back and forth as she clutched at the one thing she’d been adamant about keeping with her for all these years, but it didn't help her to fight off the memories.  She scratched at her wrists, where she could feel the echoes of restraints that hadn’t been used on her in years.  She stood up and began to pace again.  She wanted to lie down, pull a blanket over her head, curl up in the dark until everything disappeared, but just thinking about it, she felt those phantom restraints grow tighter, holding her down, so she put as much space as possible between herself and anything she could be strapped down to.

She just needed to cool down, she told herself.  A few days away from the team, a few days where she could do anything and just let herself react and not be analyzed and dissected and asked a hundred weird questions, and she’d be fine.

Just a few days, and then she’d be okay.  She always turned out okay.


End file.
